The present invention relates to a storage unit for elongated elements, particularly cigarettes.
In the following description, specific reference is made, purely by way of example, to a storage unit of the type described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,254,858, to which full reference is made herein in the interest of full disclosure, and which is installed between cigarette manufacturing and packing machines for compensating for any difference in the output of the machines.
The above prior patent relates to a storage unit comprising an elastic wall moving both ways along a helical path, for feeding a mass of cigarettes to and from a loading-unloading station defined by a conveyor and a connecting plate connecting the conveyor to the elastic wall.
When unloading, the mass of cigarettes is fed to the conveyor by a contact plate on one end of the helical wall, and which, after unloading, is arrested substantially contacting the opposite end of the connecting plate to that contacting the conveyor.
At the end of the unloading stage, therefore, all the cigarettes reaching the conveyor are unloaded, while all those still on the connecting plate are left in place. In other words, on the known storage unit described above, a given quantity of cigarettes exists which, once loaded, can no longer be unloaded except manually by the operator.